JEERS to Risch role in Warren silencing
In his weekly Cheers & Jeers column, Opinion Editor Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune gives JEERS … to U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho:
Just once, don’t you wish Risch wasn’t such a resolute bully?
Risch played a supporting role this week when Senate Republicans silenced Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s debate against confirming Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as Trump’s attorney general.
Warren quoted a letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 to block Session’s appointment to the federal bench because he had used “the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that violated Senate Rule 19, which forbids senators from “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.”
Along with Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, Risch voted to sanction Warren.
According to The Hill newspaper, Risch also objected when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., tried to enter King’s letter into the Senate record.
Next, Risch defended the episode. More here (2nd item).
* This story was originally published as a post from the blog "Huckleberries Online." Read all stories from this blog